Some libertarian critics also complain that his opposition to abortion rights for women violates libertarian principles of choice. In an interview, Paul says that he came to his views on abortion in part from his experience delivering babies. "From the very beginning, I had a moral and legal obligation to take care of two people, the mother and the child, and if I did anything wrong, I realized that I could be sued for it," he said. "That had an impact on me."

He recalls witnessing an illegal abortion in his first year out of medical school that made an impression, too. "Once I became more firmly entrenched with libertarian beliefs, I realized that another life was involved, I saw this as a principle of nonaggression, which libertarians adhere to. The baby has a choice, too."

Also, Noldrin is right in one respect. Ron Paul is not the only racist, Bill Cosby is one of the biggest anti-black racists there is.

Why is Bill Cosby a racist? Because he believe black people should stop supporting culture that promotes violence against women and society and should actually try and work on something to improve their position in life, like attempt to get an education, rather than wait around for a hand out from Uncle Sam while remaining poor? The racists are the people who think blacks should remain in an economic ghetto and be dependent on handouts. The racists are the ones who think while Haitians can be successful, it's too hard for African Americans to be. The biggest problem with Bill Cosby's argument is he is not promoting collective economic action among people and not rallying against the drug war which disproportionately traps blacks in a perpetual economic apartheid.

Morris ran numerous attacks, including publicizing issues of the Ron Paul Survival Report (published by Paul since 1985) that included derogatory comments concerning race and other politicians.[53][54] Alluding to a 1992 study finding that "of black men in Washington ... about 85 percent are arrested at some point in their lives",[55][56] the newsletter proposed assuming that "95% of the black males in Washington DC are semi-criminal or entirely criminal", and stated that "the criminals who terrorize our cities ... largely are" young black males, who commit crimes "all out of proportion to their numbers".[57][58]

In 2001, Paul took "moral responsibility" for the comments printed in his newsletter under his name, telling Texas Monthly magazine that the comments were written by an unnamed ghostwriter and did not represent his views. He said newsletter remarks referring to U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (calling her a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist") were "the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady."[59] The magazine defended Paul's decision to protect the writer's confidence in 1996, concluding, "In four terms as a U.S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this."[34]

He wants to push it to the states instead of having the federal government involved. To me that's tolerable.

I'm a little late on this discussion, but I couldn't let this one pass. I wouldn't call "state
s rights" in this case a progressive stance. That was the way Jim Crow laws were allowed to exist in the south. It was also the way that Southern states could get away with lynching blacks until a federal anti-lynching law was enacted. State's rights in abortion would take the right of abortion away from the people who are least able to travel out of the state in question, the poor.

The reason that libertarians like Ron Paul support state's rights is that when you take the federal government out of the picture it basically gives large corporations more flexibility to do whatever the hell they want to do. Libertarians aren't progressive, they're just greedy. While the federal government is certainly not anti-corporate it will occasionally intervene when pressure is put upon it (OSHA for example). States are in a much weaker position to do this. Without the strong arm of the federal government intervening the civil rights movement would have ended in the kind of blood baths that happened in the south after the civil war, which themselves were only suppressed by northern military occupation of the south.

Ron Paul's philosophy is right in line with Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Which you could say did advocate a type of anarchism...

I'm a little late on this discussion, but I couldn't let this one pass. I wouldn't call "states rights" in this case a progressive stance. That was the way Jim Crow laws were allowed to exist in the south. It was also the way that Southern states could get away with lynching blacks until a federal anti-lynching law was enacted. State's rights in abortion would take the right of abortion away from the people who are least able to travel out of the state in question, the poor.

Actually Jim Crow laws existed is because of the doctrine of separate but equal, if it was state rights, that doctrine would not exist and instead we would have had a ruling on states rights. This was clearly not the case because of the 14th amendment made it a federal issue. After that Doctrine no longer existed, the Democrats who held the presidency were too scared to enforce the rule of law because they depended on the southern democrats to get elected. I will agree that during this time period, segregationist to fly the banner of states rights to try and justify their positions to the rest of the country.

ewl wrote:

The reason that libertarians like Ron Paul support state's rights is that when you take the federal government out of the picture it basically gives large corporations more flexibility to do whatever the hell they want to do. Libertarians aren't progressive, they're just greedy. While the federal government is certainly not anti-corporate it will occasionally intervene when pressure is put upon it (OSHA for example). States are in a much weaker position to do this. Without the strong arm of the federal government intervening the civil rights movement would have ended in the kind of blood baths that happened in the south after the civil war, which themselves were only suppressed by northern military occupation of the south.

Actually states are in general much more tough on corporations than the federal government. Corporations prefer a heavily centralized government because their is just one government to buy off, plus a hand full of states, and the citizens have the weakest direct influence on the people there. Also ever since they froze the size of the house of reps, the number of people a congressman represented has dramatically increased, especially when considering that now women can also vote too. The states used to have a voice in washington in Senate, which helped matter, but then we moved to direct election which now means the Senate now answers to corporations, not the state governments.

A good example of the central government / individual state issue is credit cards. My state has ruled on strong consumer protection on credit cards, but the federal government invalidating the law saying that only the laws of the state were they are incorporated apply, IE probably Delaware. So in Massachusetts I have to rely on either Delaware or the Federal Government to protect me. As it is, the Federal Government is increasing my legal liability to the credit cards, after the fact of me agreeing to the loan.

ewl wrote:

Ron Paul's philosophy is right in line with Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Which you could say did advocate a type of anarchism...

While a number of Libertarians are indeed Randites, Ron Paul is far more a constructionist. A Randite believes that no one has an inherit interest beyond their self. Alan Greenspan is a Randite. Ron Paul believes that the founders of the country developed good methods in order to balance the roles of the individual and the government in order to prevent the government from being subverted into a vehicle of oppression. This is why Ron Paul is against the Federal Reserve, moves bread from one basket to another in a large way not authorized by the Constitution. Alan Greenspan supported and ran the Federal Reserve because it was a method which a lot of people can get rich while keeping the system from crashing. I think you'll find this different than anarchism, which does come in many flavors, but often revolves around checks and balances resting with the individual.

Actually Jim Crow laws existed is because of the doctrine of separate but equal, if it was state rights, that doctrine would not exist and instead we would have had a ruling on states rights. This was clearly not the case because of the 14th amendment made it a federal issue. After that Doctrine no longer existed, the Democrats who held the presidency were too scared to enforce the rule of law because they depended on the southern democrats to get elected. I will agree that during this time period, segregationist to fly the banner of states rights to try and justify their positions to the rest of the country.

Even after "separate but equal" was declared unconstitutional Jim Crow was still a fact, because of state nullification. There was no federal power to enforce the law until federal marshals and the U.S. military were sent down to enforce it. Also, things like the anti-lynching laws were opposed on the principal of states rights. The civil rights reforms of the 1960's were a series of federal laws enforced by the federal government.

noldrin wrote:

Actually states are in general much more tough on corporations than the federal government.

In general that depends on the state and the federal administration. Texas hasn't been very tough on the oil companies. And corporations are usually able to make the states compete for their favors by moving to the ones with the more favorable laws. That's why all the mill towns in Massachusetts like the one I live in no longer have any functioning mills because industry has for the most part been moving south (both nationally and internationally) where state laws and wage levels are more favorable.

noldrin wrote:

Corporations prefer a heavily centralized government because their is just one government to buy off, plus a hand full of states, and the citizens have the weakest direct influence on the people there. Also ever since they froze the size of the house of reps, the number of people a congressman represented has dramatically increased, especially when considering that now women can also vote too. The states used to have a voice in washington in Senate, which helped matter, but then we moved to direct election which now means the Senate now answers to corporations, not the state governments.

Wow, I don't know where to start. The Bush administration which I think we can all agree is a big backer of corporate interests has done all they can to undermine federal environmental regulations passed in the 60's and 70's and federal labor regulations passed during the New Deal. So "corporate interests" seem to have decided on less federal intervention in those areas. You seem to be saying that we were better off with a less democratic Senate than one that is directly elected. Somehow state legislators are more in touch with the interests of the people than the people are?

noldrin wrote:

A good example of the central government / individual state issue is credit cards. My state has ruled on strong consumer protection on credit cards, but the federal government invalidating the law saying that only the laws of the state were they are incorporated apply, IE probably Delaware. So in Massachusetts I have to rely on either Delaware or the Federal Government to protect me. As it is, the Federal Government is increasing my legal liability to the credit cards, after the fact of me agreeing to the loan.

You've made my point. Massachusetts has no power over corporations operating out of Delaware. And the credit card companies have a choice of what state to base their business in. The only kind of law that could have any effect on the policies of credit card companies is federal law. And you can be sure that the credit card companies would be against increasing the federal government's power to regulate them.

The rallying cry of the Republicans, which more directly represent corporate interests than Democrats who play a more coy game, has been "deregulation". Deregulation means less federal power over corporations, and corporations have for the most part overwhelming supported it.

Even after "separate but equal" was declared unconstitutional Jim Crow was still a fact, because of state nullification. There was no federal power to enforce the law until federal marshals and the U.S. military were sent down to enforce it. Also, things like the anti-lynching laws were opposed on the principal of states rights. The civil rights reforms of the 1960's were a series of federal laws enforced by the federal government.

No Jim Crow continued because the southern states ignored the existing law of the 14th and 15th amendment and the supreme court rulings of them and the Federal Government refused to act. What MLK was doing was attempting to force them into acting. JFK did not want to send federal troops into the south even though he had the power and responsibility to do so.

ewl wrote:

In general that depends on the state and the federal administration. Texas hasn't been very tough on the oil companies. And corporations are usually able to make the states compete for their favors by moving to the ones with the more favorable laws. That's why all the mill towns in Massachusetts like the one I live in no longer have any functioning mills because industry has for the most part been moving south (both nationally and internationally) where state laws and wage levels are more favorable.

No the mills closed in Massachusetts and moved south because alternatives to water power were developed and it was cheaper to work in the south because of lower heating costs.

ewl wrote:

Wow, I don't know where to start. The Bush administration which I think we can all agree is a big backer of corporate interests has done all they can to undermine federal environmental regulations passed in the 60's and 70's and federal labor regulations passed during the New Deal. So "corporate interests" seem to have decided on less federal intervention in those areas. You seem to be saying that we were better off with a less democratic Senate than one that is directly elected. Somehow state legislators are more in touch with the interests of the people than the people are?

Yes, the complete corporate takeover of washington did not occur till the 1980's. Before this it was still possible to make positive changes through Washington. Ralph Nader speaks quite well on this about how he used to be able to pass much of the regulations you speak of from the 60's and 70's but now that ability to do that is essentially gone. This is why he basically said screw it all and ran for President for the past 3 elections cycles.

The House was set up to be the direct voice of the people. For most of our history is wasn't so many people for each representative and someone could quite easily communicate with them without needing a lot of money. The Senate was the voice of the state government, the state governments (made up of representatives had even closer contact with the people) could bring in their Senators and question them to why they did and did not pass certain bills, they had to vote in the interest of their state or would find themselves booted after 6 years in office. One it change to direct vote, the Senator now had to get the entire population of a state to vote for them, this guaranteed the need to collect money, which is most likely to make the person have to answer to special interests. At the same time, representatives in the house started representing more and more people, which also made money a more likely factor in their elections.

ewl wrote:

You've made my point. Massachusetts has no power over corporations operating out of Delaware. And the credit card companies have a choice of what state to base their business in. The only kind of law that could have any effect on the policies of credit card companies is federal law. And you can be sure that the credit card companies would be against increasing the federal government's power to regulate them.

The rallying cry of the Republicans, which more directly represent corporate interests than Democrats who play a more coy game, has been "deregulation". Deregulation means less federal power over corporations, and corporations have for the most part overwhelming supported it.

This is because the Federal Government has removed this power from the state governments. Another example is that California actually passed real emission standards. The federal government removed this law. A lot of this wouldn't be such an issue if we followed the word of the constitution to so that the people could actually have a real voice. If we did we would at least 9,367 representatives in the US House, and our representatives would still each be answering to more voters than in 1790. Also it's pretty obvious that the Senate has just become the mouth pieces of corporations and are not representing the people. Even Hillary Clinton has been bought off by the health care industry. If they had to answer back to the state congress, at least they wouldn't be serving the money directly. Without proper checks and balances we might us well move to a true direct democracy.

No Jim Crow continued because the southern states ignored the existing law of the 14th and 15th amendment and the supreme court rulings of them and the Federal Government refused to act. What MLK was doing was attempting to force them into acting. JFK did not want to send federal troops into the south even though he had the power and responsibility to do so.

And how was this finally resolved? By federal or state law?

noldrin wrote:

No the mills closed in Massachusetts and moved south because alternatives to water power were developed and it was cheaper to work in the south because of lower heating costs.

Really? In the 1980's Union Twist Drill, a division of Union Butterfield moved all it's facilities out of Athol MA, my home town, and moved down south, laying off half the town's population in the process. My father used to be a union organizer in the shoe industry in Massachusetts. That industry no longer exists in the state. In neither of these cases was water power an issue.

noldrin wrote:

Yes, the complete corporate takeover of washington did not occur till the 1980's.

The complete corporate take over of Washington occurred after the Civil War. What has happened is that periodically progressive movements have arisen to force Washington to take limited action. Then the political pendulum swings back, but the reforms are important. If you wanted to gut environmental regulations and civil rights reforms one of the best ways to do that would be to eliminate the EPA and the Voting Rights Act. and Civil Rights Act Here's Ron Paul on the Civil Rights Act:

Quote:

Contrary to the claims of supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

I guess he's talking about the individual liberty of the states to deny the right to vote to their black population. That probably works with southern whites who yearn for the good old days when the Klan kept their black population in line. I don't think you'd find any civil rights activists who would agree that it's a unbiased assessment of the impact of the Civil Rights Act. And he has voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

And of course he sees the EPA as something to be eliminated. He believes that laissez faire capitalism is the way to go to improve the environment. Which I'm sure works with large corporations trying to rid themselves of expensive environmental regulations.

It was finally resolved when public opinion in the south shifted away from views of segregation and discrimination.

ewl wrote:

Really? In the 1980's Union Twist Drill, a division of Union Butterfield moved all it's facilities out of Athol MA, my home town, and moved down south, laying off half the town's population in the process. My father used to be a union organizer in the shoe industry in Massachusetts. That industry no longer exists in the state. In neither of these cases was water power an issue.

The final death throws of the mill industry occurred durring the Great Depression of 1930's. Western Mass is still recovering from this, much of the region still feels the repercussions economically from losing it's mills. Anything since then has been some other company living in the left over husks of the mills.

The shoe industry went abroad, the few places in America are in places were you can get cheap high quality labor, anyone who stayed in areas of high labor cost went out of business or went to another country. I'm pretty sure your father wasn't earning minimum wage but something resembling a living wage. Maine still has a shoe industry because it's a poorer state.

ewl wrote:

The complete corporate take over of Washington occurred after the Civil War. What has happened is that periodically progressive movements have arisen to force Washington to take limited action. Then the political pendulum swings back, but the reforms are important. If you wanted to gut environmental regulations and civil rights reforms one of the best ways to do that would be to eliminate the EPA and the Voting Rights Act. and Civil Rights Act Here's Ron Paul on the Civil Rights Act:

Quote:

Contrary to the claims of supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

I guess he's talking about the individual liberty of the states to deny the right to vote to their black population. That probably works with southern whites who yearn for the good old days when the Klan kept their black population in line. I don't think you'd find any civil rights activists who would agree that it's a unbiased assessment of the impact of the Civil Rights Act. And he has voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

And of course he sees the EPA as something to be eliminated. He believes that laissez faire capitalism is the way to go to improve the environment. Which I'm sure works with large corporations trying to rid themselves of expensive environmental regulations.

Right so you want to rely on the Federal government to protect you, yet you say the pendulum swings. This seems like a poor method of protecting ones self, like strapping yourself to a submarine to cross an ocean.

How has the EPA protected the environment? The rate of environmental destruction is increasing, not decreasing. It has consistently increased, and in the broad picture, the EPA is a failure.

Here is Ron Paul on the civil voting rights Act and the current movement towards fascism.

Though I appreciate Paul's opposition to the Iraq and Afghan wars and his position on the "war on drugs", the problem for me is that Paul believes in the ultimate justice of inviolable property rights and unrestrained free market capitalism. That's why Paul opposes the Federal Reserve--he's against ANY intervention in the market by the government. He seems to be a consistent ideologue in this way. He's against corporate subsidies, but also against the minimum wage, against labor laws, against environmental laws, against a guarantee to education, an income, food, against all of the basic yet limited guarantees that poor people's movements have fought for and won in the past hundred years.

I watched the clip noldrin just posted. I found Paul's position on the Civil Rights act to be absurd. The quote Tim Russert put up showed Paul trying to make it sound as though it was the Civil Rights Act that was responsible for subsequent racial tensions in the south. That sounds to me like those southerners who argue that everything was fine in the south until the "outside agtitaters" came and started stirring things up, or Trent Lott saying that if "states' rights advocate" Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948 "we wouldn't have had all this trouble all these years." Then Paul started talking about it as if it was a "property rights" issue. Ahem. So Paul is defending the right of people to say "I don't have to allow coloreds into my restaurant chain or movie theaters, because it's my property!" So for Paul, "property rights" trump all, including the general consensus of humanity.

His position on the Civil War was even more absurd and offensive--slavery could have been solved if the government would have proposed a slave buyback program. That way we could have ended slavery without violating the sacred property rights of the slaveholders. Unless, uh, they didn't want to sell their slaves to the government. Well, in any case we shouldn't have forced the slaveholders to give up their slaves, because that involved force, and force is WRONG. And look at how much racism that war caused! If it hadn't been for the war, eventually slavery would have gone away everything would have turned out just fine!

Finally, there's his position on the border, where we can see his pretensions to consistent libertarianism come crashing down. He's not only against giving citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants from Mexico, but in the interview with Russert he compared them to "drug dealers." Those damn, nasty drug dealers! Of course, Paul's ancestors were automatically given citizenship rights just for showing up. But today we've got to put a stop to this, because now there are just too many damn Mexicans coming in! I mean come on, would you give citizenship to a drug dealer, Tim?

No vote from me for capitalism, for property, or for Paul. Kucinich is a far far better anti-war candidate, and a far better representative of humane social values.

[Right so you want to rely on the Federal government to protect you, yet you say the pendulum swings. This seems like a poor method of protecting ones self, like strapping yourself to a submarine to cross an ocean.

I do rely on the Federal Government. I will be retiring in 5 to 10 years and I'll be relying on the Federal Government to follow through with it's promise to pay me my social security checks and the federal retirement checks that I have coming to me. It's not the best system in the world but Ron Paul's plan will end up taking it all away from me and I'll spend the remaining years of my old age homeless because republicans like him don't believe in subsidized housing, etc. Yes, the pendulum swings back but the hard won reforms remain. There still is a social security system because so many voters are relying on it that Bush couldn't gut it like he wanted to. His own party saw the writing on the wall and backed down. Every industrialized country in the world besides the U.S has cradle to grave national health insurance and it doesn't matter how right wing the administration that takes it over they can't get rid of it because too many voters rely on it. The republicans (and the democrats) know that once such a system is introduced in the United States it will never be removed because it will be so more successful than the current privately based program that removing it will be as politically impossible as getting rid of social security. Reforms like those, as imperfect as they are, need to be defended against capitlalists who want to take them away, or gut them to make them seem more unsuccessful than they are. Ron Paul is on the wrong side. He's on the side of the Capitalists and despite his position on the war he's actually way to the right of center.

federal retirement checks that I have coming to me. It's not the best system in the world but Ron Paul's plan will end up taking it all away from me

This is actually incorrect. He does not want to take any take away any current OBLIGATIONS, he just wants to make it so people can OPT-OUT if they want to (e.g. most young people). Current obligations would be paid--in fact, he also argues he has never spent any money out of the social security trust fund, unlike other politicians that plundered it so they could give away another handout to some corporation.

At some point I want to answer the larger questions that i've seen here...

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